{"id":499052,"date":"2026-02-25T18:10:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T18:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/499052\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T18:10:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T18:10:08","slug":"xbox-starts-with-console-asha-sharma-wants-to-bring-culture-and-fun-back-to-xbox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/499052\/","title":{"rendered":"“Xbox Starts With Console,” Asha Sharma Wants To Bring Culture and Fun Back To Xbox"},"content":{"rendered":"

In an interview, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma and CCO Matt Booty clarify previous statements made by the CEO, saying the company wants to bring back its spirit, and it starts with the console. <\/p>\n

In case you haven\u2019t heard, Xbox has a new CEO, and fans haven\u2019t exactly been all too pleased<\/a> about it. With the surprise retirement of Phil Spencer<\/a> and Sarah Bond out at Xbox, former CoreAI CEO Asha Sharma has taken over the reins at Microsoft Gaming, with Matt Booty serving as CCO. Today, the new heads of Microsoft Gaming sat down with\u00a0Windows Central<\/a>\u00a0for an interview to shed light on their future plans for Xbox and discuss their efforts to return the gaming juggernaut to form.<\/p>\n

\"&Quot;Xbox<\/p>\n

In her opening letter, signing on as CEO, Asha Sharma explained she wanted to bring about a \u201creturn\u201d to Xbox. She clarifies what she meant by that statement, saying it\u2019s \u201cabout returning to the spirit that the team was founded on,\u201d\u00a0adding,\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s that spirit of surprise, it\u2019s the spirit of building something nobody else was willing to try \u2014 I\u2019ve heard \u2018renegade,\u2019 \u2018rebellion,\u2019 and \u2018fun\u2019 used. That\u2019s what I was thinking about when I wrote that.\u201d <\/p>\n

She explained that she knows how long the dedicated fans have been on their platform, and she\u2019s committed to meeting them where they are, starting with the console. This is far different from the previous \u201cEvery screen is an Xbox\u201d strategy touted in February 2024<\/a>. Sharma explains the company wants to reduce this friction (and the \u201cartificial divide\u201d fans have had between devices touted as the console) since then. They\u2019re committed to breaking this divide and starting with the fans; the company plans to go from there. With regards to 25 years of gaming history, Sharma is looking towards \u201clifetime value, not just what happened in a previous moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

She continues, \u201cplayers have thousands of dollars invested, in money and time too \u2014 it\u2019s incredibly important for me to understand that and protect that,\u201d\u00a0adding,\u00a0\u201cI am committed to \u2018returning to Xbox,\u2019 and that starts with console, that starts with hardware. You will hear more about that soon,\u201d confirming the company\u2019s commitment to the home platform it started as. New hardware is still in the works. <\/p>\n

\"Rog<\/p>\n

On the topic of AI, CCO Matt Booty confirmed, \u201cWe\u2019ve got no pressure from Microsoft; there are no directives on AI coming down. Our teams are free to use any technologies that might be beneficial, whether it\u2019s helping write code, checking for bugs, or working on more production pipeline tasks. At the end of the day, as Asha said, we\u2019re committed to art made by people,\u201d saying the usage of AI in Microsoft\u2019s ecosystem is for AI to be additive and supportive and not replace people. Sharma also said in the interview, \u201cI will not flood our ecosystem with slop,\u201d in regard to her previous role as a CoreAI executive.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the Xbox executives say they mainly want what the fans want: the next 25 years at Xbox to be incredible. With a sign off, Sharma says, \u201cThis team has brought it back before, and I\u2019m here to help us do it again.\u201d <\/p>\n

Xbox fans will have to wait and see if the team behind the console will meet them \u201cwhere they are.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In an interview, Xbox CEO Asha Sharma and CCO Matt Booty clarify previous statements made by the CEO,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":499053,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[49,48,61],"class_list":["post-499052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/499053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}